


a Whole Sort of General Mish Mash

by Wapwani



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: AU, Crack, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-16
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-09-24 21:51:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9788696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wapwani/pseuds/Wapwani
Summary: What happens when Swan Queen AUs collide? And all the AU Emmas and Reginas decide that Emma and Regina really need to get their act together and get together?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> There’s been a lot of AU in my head just lately. And then I read what was most likely a fic by coalitiongirl where Future!Emma and Future!Regina say they’re married and it got me thinking - what if all those AU SQ couples met?
> 
> The title is from Douglas Adam's 'Mostly Harmless':  
> "... any given universe is not actually a thing as such, but is just a way of looking at what is technically known as the WSOGMM, or Whole Sort of General Mish Mash. The Whole Sort of General Mish Mash doesn't actually exist either, but is just the sum total of all the different ways there would be of looking at it if it did.
> 
> The reason they [parallel universes] are not parallel is the same reason that the sea is not parallel. It doesn't mean anything. You can slice the Whole Sort of General Mish Mash any way you like and you will generally come up with something that someone will call home."

The portals swirled in and out simultaneously, with a whooshing noise reminiscent of a line of rally cars all setting off at the same time. Each portal deposited a pair of women - one dark haired, the other fair.

A heartbeat after they had materialised, various cries in varied tones of anger/frustration/cajoling rent the air

 

_"What the hell?!"_

_"Who do I have to kill?!"_

_"God damn it! Not again!"_

_"I didn't touch anything this time!"_

_"Who keeps dropping beans?!"_

_"Who the hell are you?!"_

_"Where is my-"_

_"What have you done with-"_

_"Get away from her you bitch!"_

_"Who are you calling a bitch?!"_

 

The two women who were the cause of this pandemonium stared out at the mob of their bickering doppelgängers and smiled at each other, pleased with the results of their spell casting.

The shorter of them stepped forward to the round table at the centre of the room, picked up a fork and rapped it sharply against a crystal goblet.

Half the other women in the room turned to her with identical, horrified, looks at this abuse of fine glassware.

Regina smirked at all her doubles. "Now that I have _your_ attention," she said, with a glance at Emma.

Emma lifted her curled fingers to her lips and produced such a piercing whistle, all the other Emmas in the room cringed and threw their hands over their ears.

 

“Must you?” half the Reginas said angrily.

The other half smacked an Emma in the arm. 

“It wasn’t me!”

“Sorry. Force of habit.”

 

“Now that we have _all_ your attention-“ the Regina standing behind the table started to say.

The other Reginas weren’t having any of that.

 

“How would you like a fireball to the face?”

“I don’t know who you think you are, but you have kidnapped the _wrong-“_

 

_“Ladies!”_ the first Regina shouted. “Take a seat. And we will explain.”

With rather a lot of bickering and complaining and threatening, everyone eventually settled at the table.

“Spit it out,” several Reginas snarled at the duo who had taken seat at the head of the table.

“First of all, answer me this,” the head-of-table Regina said. “How many of you are together?”

“What the hell-“

“Answer the question!”

“What does ‘together’ mean?” an Emma asked. “Like..married or just…you know. Friends with benefits?”

“All of the above,” head-of-table Regina answered.

“And everything in between,” head-of-table Emma added.

“Because some of us are _trying_ to get married,” the Emma who had asked the question said grumpily, “but others of us don’t think it’s such a good idea and-“

“Emma!” her Regina said, smacking her in the arm. “There is no need for this to become a matter of _public_ discussion.”

“It’s not public! It’s just us!”

“I’d say you could put us down for ‘everything in between’,” a Regina in a red silk blouse said.

“Married,” an Emma in a light blue shirt spoke for herself and her Regina.

“We’re-“ started another Emma.

“Together” finished her Regina, firmly, before any personal details came spilling out.

“Involved,” said a long-haired Regina. “Definitely involved.”

All the other Emmas and Reginas had left a bit of a distance around this particular couple, probably because this Emma came in the Dark Swan version. 

When she noticed the slightly scandalised look some of her doubles were giving her, the long-haired Regina sneered. “Oh, don’t look like that. You should all be grateful. At least she’s not out destroying all the worlds.”

“Yeah,” the Dark Swan Emma said with a satisfied smirk. “It’s much more fun to destroy Regina’s-“

_“Yes_ dear?” her Regina cut in, with a warningly raised eye brow. 

The Dark Swan ducked her head a little. 

“Sleep,” she said. “Destroying Regina’s sleep.” She straightened up a bit and gave an evil little grin. “Because of all the sex we’re having.” 

Then she looked at her partner. “Ok? That wasn’t too graphic. Right?”

Her Regina sighed and patted a leather-clad thigh. “It’ll do, my dear.”

“Look, this is all very fascinating,” a short-haired Regina wearing what looked suspiciously like an Emma’s t-shirt said, her voice slightly harried. “But can we get to the point soon? Some of us have teething babies at home!”

“Yeah,” her Emma agreed sleepily. “And it was my turn to nap.”

Head-of-table Regina smirked. “The point is, is there _any_ of us in the room who are _not_ together?”

Everyone looked around. As the silence and head-shaking stretched on, eyes started to widen in surprise.

“Really?” a few Emmas asked.

“Yup,” head-of-table Emma replied.

“The point is,” head-of-table Regina said, getting to her feet. “In all the worlds, in all the realms, no matter where we have looked; there is only _one_ pairing of us that is _not_ together.”

“So they’re a bit late.”

“That’s not such a big deal, surely”

Head-of-table Regina frowned. “You will think differently when you know _which_ realm is the only realm where we’re not-“

“The prime realm?” several Reginas demanded, in shocked voices.

Head-of-table Regina looked a little ticked off that the thunder of her announcement had been stolen from her, but she rallied quickly.

“Yes. The Prime. The first of us. Ur-Regina and Ur-Emma. They remain apart.”

“But that makes no sense!”

“Why would the Prime be…why would _we_ be if the Prime isn’t?!”

Head-of-table Regina shrugged.

“Life is weird,” head-of-table Emma said.

“We didn’t call you here to the answer the ‘why’,” head-of-table Regina said.

_         “She must be so lonely,” the baby-having Emma said, soft and sad. _

_         “Does she not realise?” red-silk Regina asked. _

“We called you here to make a difference,” head-of-table Emma said.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The AUs put their plan into motion. (Featuring some of my favourite AU tropes)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may have mixed in a few feels with the crack

Emma and Regina hid in the bushes and watched Emma and Regina walk through the park together.

The strolling couple were bickering genially about the use of town funds to build a carousel in the park. Emma was eating an ice cream cone; Regina was crunching on an apple.

It was obvious neither of them was doing more than passing the time; there was no real bite or sense of urgency to their arguments. 

In the bushes, Emma sighed.

“They’re so oblivious.”

“May I remind you, my dear,” her Regina said snippily, “that I had to let you melt three ice-cream cones all over my favourite boots and coats before you realised that these little walks were more than just ‘a healthier way to conduct town business’.”

“Well, if you didn’t look so good in those boots and coats, perhaps I’d’ve been focused enough to eat my ice creams before they melted!” Emma snarked right back.

She brushed Regina’s hair back from her face and kissed her cheek.

Regina flushed prettily, but said sternly, “I need you to focus right now, Emma. We can’t afford to miss.”

“Yes, yes of course,” Emma replied, her eyes narrowing.

They watched the other couple again. Regina’s hair was loose and gleaming in the sunlight, and she kept tucking fly-away strands of it behind her ear. She’d grin at Emma every time she did this.

Emma’s ice cream was being so thoroughly ignored that her fist was fast becoming covered in a white sticky mess. When the first splash hit Regina’s jacket, they both groaned. Emma stopped to throw her melted ice cream into a waste bin, Regina leaned away from her, rummaging in a pocket for a wet wipe. There were a few feet between them now.

The watching couple struck.

They burst out from behind the bush, Emma screaming “Get the hell out of my town you imposters!”

“Now!” Regina shouted.

They both raised their arms in the same moment, and the power flowed out of them, merging and melding easily, calling a portal into being. Directly behind Emma where she stood by the waste bin.

Emma instinctively stepped backwards so that she would be shielding Regina from this surprise attack - and was immediately sucked into the portal.

Regina’s anguished cry of “Emma no!” came too late to warn her.

 

Furious, Regina was rounding on the couple that had attacked them unprovoked. Her hands were filling with fire, but distracted as she had been by Emma’s disappearance, her reaction was just a little too slow.

The strange pair gestured again, and Regina found herself bound in some sort of swaddling power that kept her arms tight to her sides, and her magic dampened. The next moment, she felt the tingle of the transport spell.

 

They reappeared in her study, at the mansion on Mifflin street. 

“I don’t know who you are-“ both Reginas snarled at the same time, “But I am going to make you sorry you ever-“

“Stop that!” the bound Regina growled.

“You stop that! You come into _my_ realm-“

_“Your_ realm? This realm is mine!”

“Umm. Regina. Honey?”

“What?” snapped one Regina.

_“Honey?”_ snapped the other.

“I think I may have taken a wrong turn somewhere.”

“Emma,” the un-bound Regina said slowly. “You told me you double checked your figures.”

“Umm. I _thought_ I did. But you had the waistcoat on. You know what that does to my concentration.”

“Emma,” Regina sighed.

_“Honey?”_ (Sometimes it was hard for Regina to let go of a thought that was bothering her).

“Well,” the un-bound Regina said gamely, “It seems we may have made a slight miscalculation.”

“Slight?” Regina snarled.

“This may not be my realm after all.”

“You think?”

“We’ll just be on our way then.” She turned to Emma, ignoring the bound and furious double behind her. _“I’ll_ cast the spell this time.”

“Yeah ok,” Emma said sheepishly.

“Wait a minute!” Regina, still-bound, hollered. “Where is Emma. _My-_ The _other_ Emma?”

“Oh. Oh right. We’d best try to sort that out, huh?” not-bound-Regina’s Emma said.

“And you let _her_ call you _honey?”_ Regina said to her counterpart, the disdain dripping off her words.

“She has qualities that more than make up for any … slight … miscalculations in spell-casting,” Regina said fondly. She patted Emma in a place that made bound-Regina both flush and flinch.

“Okay, so, we’d best send you after your Emma,” Regina said, taking her hands off Emma long enough to rub them together in a gleeful motion that was unsettlingly reminiscent of something the Evil Queen would do as she gloated over her vanquished foes.

“You know where she went? Can’t you just bring her back here?”

“Oh no. That’s not how the magic works. I’ll set the spell, it’ll open a portal, and you just step through, and you’ll be in the realm she's in.”

“Release me!” Regina snarled, writhing ineffectually in her bindings.

Emma gulped.

“All in good time,” the other Regina said tartly. “I don’t want to be in striking distance of you when I free you. No offence, my dear, but I do know how you think.”

And with that, she snapped her fingers. A portal opened behind her, and she took Emma’s arm and stepped through. Emma turned at the last moment to wave goodbye.

Regina howled in fury.

She struggled against her bindings to no avail.

It took about ten minutes before the magic faded, freeing her.

Two minutes worth of ranting and raving later, and she saw the shimmer of a portal forming.

She paused only long enough to fire off a quick text to her son, ( _I’m out saving your mother. Go to your grandparents’. Don’t let them feed you nothing but pop tarts. Do your homework. We’ll try to be back by bedtime. <3 Mum._ (It really was a sign of the frantic hurry she was in that she used the ascii symbol <3 instead of typing out ‘I love you’)), and stepped through the portal.

 

***

 

The portal led to a familiar corridor; the one outside her bedroom. 

Thrown by the unexpectedness of the location, Regina froze for a handful of seconds, and her bedroom door started to swing open.

She stepped back, hand curling for the fire.

Emma Swan stepped out of Regina’s bedroom.

“What the _hell_ Em-“ she started to say, then stopped. “You’re…you’re…not wearing any pants!” (in her head was a distant-but-oft-revisited memory of Emma Swan in a tank top, red panties and not much else).

This observation was immediately followed by “You’re _not_ Emma!” and a blaze of fire in her palm.

Emma had raised her hands defensively.

“Hold on, Regina!” she cried.

“Hmm?” said a sultry voice from behind her.

“Oh no,” said Regina backing away, the fire fizzling out in her hand.

The person in the room behind Emma had emerged into the light, and Regina was looking at herself. A version of herself wearing a skimpy piece of lingerie consisting of not much more than gauzy tufts of purple and silver silk and lace. A version of herself that was winding bare arms around the faux-Emma’s stomach, causing her white tank to rise up and expose a strip of skin that faux-Regina stroked with eager fingers, all the while making a satisfied humming noise that left Regina feeling altogether unsettled.

“Why are you making me wait, my dear?” faux-Regina asked.

“What happened to ‘honey’?” Regina demanded.

Faux-Regina’s eyes snapped up to stare at the other Regina.

“Oh. Hello,” she said.

“Hel- _Fuck_ you!” Regina swore.

“I am _trying_ to get there, my dear,” faux-Regina drawled. “But you two keep interrupting.”

“We keep interrupting. _We_ do? You’re the one who showed up in my realm and sent Emma who the hell knows where-“

“Oh, my dear. That wasn’t _us.”_

“What-“

“We’ve been too busy in here to go realm-hopping.”

“Busy-?”

“Hmm. Henry’ll be home soon, so we don’t have much time.”

“Henry-“

“I suppose it was _your_ Emma who was here - a little while ago?”

“Yeah,” faux-Emma said, with a mischievous grin and a gleam in her eye. “She was a little surprised too.”

“Hmm,” faux-Regina agreed, with a throaty laugh.

“Where is she now?” Regina growled, low and dangerous. 

It was hard for her not to notice the shiver this seemed to produce in faux-Emma.

“She didn't want to hang around,” faux-Emma said.

“So we sent her on her way,” faux-Regina added.

“You sent her home?” Regina asked hopefully.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” faux-Regina said. “I was a little…distracted…at the time. I just opened a portal, and she leapt through before I could-.”

“You don’t know where you sent her?” Regina almost howled the words in despair.

“Not really,” faux-Regina said. She watched the thunderclouds gather in the other Regina’s face. “But I can send you to wherever she is.”

“Do that,” Regina growled.

As the other Regina started the spell to create a portal, Regina glared at faux-Emma.

“Are you really sneaking around behind Henry’s back?”

Faux-Emma shrugged. “We’ve only been doing…whatever this is…a few days now.”

“No reason to bring Henry into something that may not go anywhere,” faux-Regina said carefully, with a guarded look.

“Yeah,” faux-Emma said glumly. “We can’t be sure if this is something long term or not. Can we? These things hardly ever are.”

Faux-Regina paused in her spell-casting to clasp faux-Emma’s elbow. “Hey,” she said softly. “Don’t give up on us before we’ve even started.”

She was rewarded with a tremulous smile, and she leaned in to kiss her Emma gently, just as the portal behind her opened.

“Ugh,” Regina groaned at this stomach-churning display of affection. She suddenly understood her Emma’s need to escape this realm as soon as possible. She leaped through the portal.

 

***

 

It was very obvious that the portal had not led her home.

Or at least, not to the home she currently inhabited, and _really_ wanted to get back to.

She was in her old castle.

Regina groaned. She could see the future. It loomed large, like the giant tapestries and empty suits of armour that lined the walls.

She was about to see the Evil Queen again.

Sure enough, when she turned slowly towards the throne she knew would be behind her, she got an eyeful of her old self. 

The Queen reclined regally in her throne, one leg hooked over an armrest. She was wearing that black leather pants and open jacket combo that Regina remembered with mixed feelings (it made her thighs and ass look amazing, but the outfit had been an absolute _nightmare_ to put on and take off). The Queen was trailing the fingers of one hand back and forth along the regal cleavage held on display by the cut of the jacket and corset; her other hand was curled possessively around the ass of the woman who stood beside her.

“Oh god,” Regina groaned.

The woman in the bright red dress and with cascading blonde curls and the happy smile was -

“Your Majesty will do,” the Queen said sardonically.

“Please tell me that’s not _my_ Emma,” Regina said resignedly. “Because if it is, I am going to have to ask you to take your hand off her ass. Or lose the hand. And I really am quite fond of that hand, and wouldn’t want to have anything happen to it. But I will destroy you if-“

“You’re rambling, my dear,” the Queen said. Her voice was surprisingly kind.

“It’s been a bit of a morning,” Regina admitted.

“You look really good,” Emma piped up. “Considering.”

The Queen patted her firmly, with a level of pressure just shy of a warning spank, and got to her feet. She stalked over and circled Regina, letting her eyes rake up and down over her other, non-Evil self.

The Queen sighed.

“Really?” She glanced back at Emma. “I can see why you chose to stay with me when you fell through that time portal.”

“Hey!” non-Evil and more-conservatively clad Regina bristled.

“Hey!” echoed Emma, virtually simultaneously, also bristly. “I _like_ the way she…you…look. No matter what you’re wearing.”

Someone who didn’t know themselves as well as Regina did may have missed the pleased smile that flitted across the Queen’s face, or the soft glance she threw Emma’s way. Or the way Emma ducked her head and flushed and -

_“She’s_ not my Emma,” non-Evil Regina said, trying to get back to the main point, and away from discussions of her choice in wardrobe. “And I’m going to guess that you’re going to tell me that when my Emma did come through here-“

“She found us in a rather compromising position. Well. Compromising for _her_ I suppose.”

Regina groaned. “And she was so startled-“

“She demanded I send her home-“

“But you were so distracted, you opened a portal, but not one-“

“Oh no, my dear. I am _always_ in control,” the Queen said, her voice a little bored, but her eyes fixed with a piercing glint on Regina’s face. “She interrupted us at one of my favourite moments. And made all kinds of uncomplimentary accusations. So I sent her somewhere she could contemplate the true nature of evil.”

Regina snarled, the fury flooding her so quickly, she had the Queen by the throat before the woman could take even half a step back.

“You will send me to her,” she said, her voice grating with threat. “And if even _one_ hair on her head has been harmed, I will return. I will find you. And I will _end_ you.” 

Despite the constricting grip on her throat, the Queen grinned.

“There you are,” she said hoarsely. “Did you miss you?”

When she only received a snarl in reply, the Queen shrugged.

“Say hello to Emma.”

She snapped her fingers and a portal opened, between them and the throne.

With one last warning snarl, Regina released the Queen and stepped into the portal.

 

***

 

For a moment, she thought the Queen had merely sent her to the palace dungeons. 

Then, despite the familiarity of bare stone walls, and guttering lights, and chains and ropes that descended in loops from the ceiling, she realised that she was not in _her_ dungeons.

She was in someone else’s dungeons.

She was in the Dark Swan’s dungeon.

Even though she’d never seen the Dark Swan’s dungeon, she knew this place belonged to her, because Emma (not _her_ Emma of course. That would be too much to hope for) was there, in the very tight, very black, very stiletto-heeled outfit that Regina sometimes dreamed about (not that she’d ever admit to those dreams).

The Dark Swan had her back to Regina. She was leaning toward the wall, her body pressed up against someone. She must have been tormenting her captive - a woman from the tone and quality of her voice - because the woman was making a low moaning sound; it was a sound that made the hair on the back of Regina’s neck stand on end and sent a shiver through her that she felt down to her very toes.

She began to call the fire to her palm, instinctively preparing herself to defend and save this captive, when suddenly she realised she recognised that voice. 

Regina knew from experience that a recording of your own voice sounded alien and unfamiliar. But now she discovered that hearing your doppelgänger moaning in pleasure was equally alien and unfamiliar.

And she (the other Regina!) _was_ moaning in pleasure, not torment.

Emma shifted when she sensed the burst of Regina’s magic, and Regina saw what she had been doing to cause her other self to sound so wanton.

Emma had been nuzzling and licking behind her left ear.

How did she know about that spot?!

As Regina’s confusion flared, the fire in her palm spluttered and failed.

“Oh, hello,” Emma said.

Regina remembered that voice. She wished she had a throat lozenge to offer the Dark Swan.

Emma straightened up, leaving the other Regina leaning against the wall, as though she still needed the support. The other Regina waved.

“Hi,” she said. “Sorry. We were waiting for you, but you were taking a while.”

“I got bored,” Emma said, sidling closer.

“And when she gets bored, other people tend to get dead.”

“Or you get fucked,” Emma finished, with a leer.

“Best of all options, all things considered,” the other Regina added with a wry smile.

Regina frowned. She knew her Emma. And she knew her Emma when she had been the Dark Swan. And she knew Emma in general. And this Emma - this Emma was trying too hard.

“You don’t scare me,” Regina said scornfully. She jabbed Emma in the shoulder. “Where did you send her?”

The Dark Swan looked affronted.

The other Regina failed to completely hide her snort of laughter. “Attagirl,” she said.

“And where’s Henry?” Regina added, a cold hand of dread settling over her heart. Had Henry ever walked in on-

“He’s fine,” the other Regina assured her quickly. “He’s at the mansion with his grandparents. Emma and I come here when she needs to unwind.”

“And I need unwinding three times a night,” Emma said, trying for the leer again.

Regina sighed.

“I get it. You fuck me often,”

“And well,” the other Regina added.

Regina recovered from her eye-roll just in time to see Emma’s proud, preening little grin. So even as the Dark Swan, Emma still liked to please. Regina would have found that endearing if she hadn’t been so furious.

“Where the _hell_ is _my_ Emma?” she demanded.

“Why do you want to bother with her?” the Dark Swan asked. She was not leering. She sounded genuinely curious. “She’s so boring. And a coward. She would never dare use her full potential. What use could she possibly be to you?”

“Don’t you dare. Don’t you _dar_ e call her worthless!” Regina suddenly found herself shouting. “She is a finer woman than you or I will _ever_ be!”

The Dark Swan had stepped back from the force of Regina’s passion.

“Woah,” she said quietly. “It’s true then,” she looked back at the other Regina. “Every version of us?”

“Every one,” the other Regina said firmly, the smile on her face wide and bright and true.

“Very well then,” the Dark Swan said. She snapped her fingers and a portal opened beside Regina. “Go get your woman.”

Regina was too eager to step through the portal to correct the Dark Swan’s assumption.

Her Emma was not _hers._

 

***

 

The portal led her back to the familiar corridor outside her bedroom. 

Except this corridor was suddenly not so familiar.

There were framed photos on the walls; not only were _her_ walls photo-free, Regina had never seen some of these pictures before. There were a few she did recognise - Henry as a baby, Henry as a young boy, Henry in his Halloween costumes - but the others. The other pictures showed a life she was unfamiliar with. Except, she was in these. As was Emma. And Henry. And. Oh. 

No. Please, no.

The bedroom door opened, and someone slipped through into the corridor.

Regina saw herself, noted the details of herself. 

She was dressed in a t-shirt (of all things!), emblazoned with the name of some ridiculous band that she knew Emma enjoyed.

She was wearing what looked far too much like sweat pants for Regina’s comfort.

She was bare-foot. Her hair had been hastily pulled back into an untidy pony-tail. She looked like she hadn’t slept in two days.

Regina knew this look. She knew it well. She had seen it in her mirror every day until Henry had been old enough to sleep through the night in his own bed.

“A baby?” she said, her voice breaking.

“Shh,” her harried new-mother self whispered, pleadingly. “They’re both finally asleep.”

_“Both?!”_ Regina squeaked, causing the new-mother to glare at her in a way the Evil Queen would have been proud of. “Sorry,” she added, her voice back under control.

“Both. Emma and-“

“Don’t tell me!” Regina interrupted. She didn’t want to know what this Regina and Emma had named their child.

“Let’s go downstairs,” Regina said tiredly. “We can talk, where we won’t wake anyone with the shouting.”

Regina, who had far less reason to feel as tired as her other self, sighed tiredly. 

“Emma’s been here, then?”

In the kitchen, she sat on a stool at the counter and watched herself putter around, preparing two cups of tea. 

“She didn’t take it well?” Regina asked.

“She walked in on Emma breast-feeding. There were tears. Then shouting. Then she ran.”

Regina hopped off the stool, her tiredness and her own pain forgotten. 

“Where is she?”

“I found her,” Regina said gently. “I always know where she goes. I found her and sent her on.”

“But not home?” Regina said, resigned.

“Not quite. She was too eager. She leaped into the portal before I could get a fix on you.”

“She’s always quick to run.”

“She can learn to stop.”

Regina stared moodily out of the kitchen window. Her apple tree was in full bloom.

“Would you like to see her? Our daughter?”

“Oh,” Regina gasped. “No. If it’s all the same. I think not.”

Regina nodded. “I understand. Well, if that’s that then, I need to send you on.”

“To where you sent her?”

“To where you need to be.”  


***

 

This time she found herself in what she could only assume was a hole in the ground.

There was a definite earthiness to the room. She thought she could see bit of roots sticking out of the dirt floor, and the air smelled richly of loam.

Regina groaned.

Why this version? As she recalled it, this version rarely brushed her hair and appeared to wash her face even less often.

She felt the arrow’s flight before she saw or heard it. She turned, her hand reached out reflexively, and she grabbed the arrow out of the air before it could bury itself between her shoulder blades.

“Oh hells! Sorry! I thought you were someone else!”

“Hello,” Regina said to the dirty-faced bandit version of herself.

She dropped the arrow into the dirt where she stood, and looked around the room. Den. Hole in the ground. She groaned again. She had once lived in a _castle._ Not 30 minutes ago in fact.

Heroes really could be such woeful creatures.

Then Regina noticed something that shook her out of her disdain. Unlike at every other stop she had made thus far on her nerve-wracking adventure, this one was empty of any sign of Emma Swan.

The story of this world came back to her in a rush. Emma imprisoned by her own mother, caged and shackled in a turret cell, guarded by a dragon who had no recollection of their friendship. Emma driven mad by memories of another life, another world, so impossibly different than this one.

Terror clutched at Regina’s heart.

“Where is she?” she cried. “Have you rescued her? Please! Tell me she is all right?!”

“Woah! Relax!” the bandit said. “Who are we talking about here?”

“Emma!”

“Which Emma?”

“What do you mean _which_ Emma?”

“Uh…I guess…your Emma or mine?”

“Mine?”

“I thought she may be yours. I mean, she showed up here through a portal. Ranted and raved for a bit. Emma had to create another portal to send her-“

_“Emma_ \- there’s another…”

“Oh. Yeah. Emma. My Emma, I guess you’d say.” The bandit grinned proudly. “She’s pretty good with magic. She’s been teaching me.”

Regina sank onto a tree stump that was apparently a stool. She shook her head, dazed. 

“You’re supposed to be dead.”

“Yeah. Things are a bit different here than you remember, I think.”

“You’re alive. Emma is okay.”

“Better than okay.” Again, that proud grin. “She’s off with Henry right now. Practicing their tracking.”

“Henry.”

“Oh. Yeah. Umm. He’s here too. It’s a bit of a long story. Your Emma didn’t seem too keen to hang around and hear all of it.”

“You’re alive,” Regina repeated, still sounding a little dazed. “Emma is okay. Henry is fine. He’s learning to track.” Her voice broke on the last word, and suddenly she was sobbing. “Oh I can’t. This is all too much. Where is Emma? Where did you send her to this time?!”

“Umm. Hey. Wait. Look. Don’t get like that, please.”

“Do you know what I’ve been through? Do you know what I’ve _seen?”_

“Sort of. Look. Hells. Please don’t cry. We don’t cry, you and me. We kick ass. That’s sort of our thing!”

“We don’t cry? Really? May I remind you about…Oh for fuck’s sake, of course I can’t remind you about any of that, because none of that happened to _you_ did it? Just to me! _You_ get the happy endings and _I_ get the tears!”

“No. Really. Don’t. Argh. Where is- Fine. Okay. I’m going to open a portal, okay? I’m going to send you through.”

“You’re only just learning to use magic!” Regina howled.

“It’s fine! Really! I know how to do this! Trust me! Trust us!”

The bandit flailed her arms wildly, and her innate magic swirled and raged around the room, unfocused but powerful. The portal coalesced, brighter than any Regina had yet seen.

Biting down on her lip to stop herself from grinning triumphantly, Regina stepped through the portal…


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The URs come home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more feels-y than crack-y

…and out onto what looked like her favourite beach.

There was a figure, sitting on a convenient rock, overlooking the water.

She trudged through the sand until she was standing at Emma’s side.

“Hey,” Emma said quietly.

“Hey,” Regina replied. 

Emma shifted, making room for Regina to sit beside her. 

Regina glanced around. “No other versions of us. So we must be-“

“Home,” Emma finished her sentence.

They sat in silence for a moment, contemplating the waves and their individual, private, thoughts.

“That was weird,” Emma said at last

“It certainly was,” Regina agreed, feelingly.

“Did you see the one with the Evil Queen?”

“I did.”

“And me as the Dark One?”

Regina stiffened infinitesimally. “It was quite unsettling to see her licking my ear.”

Emma made a snorting noise that was part amused, part supportive, and all mortified. 

“That wasn’t what she was licking when _I_ walked in.”

“Ah. Emma. Can we agree that we’re never going to speak of this again?”

“Yeah, sure,” Emma agreed distractedly. “Did you see the one where you were tied down?”

“What?”

“Tied down. To the bed. With leather straps. And I had a whip-“

“No!….at least, I don’t _think_ so.” (She recalled that the Regina in the purple and silver lingerie _had_ looked as though she’d been interrupted in the middle of something quite intense).

“That was weird,” Emma said, but perhaps not sounding quite as displeased with the memory as she could have.

“We have already established that this was weird, Emma-“

“Did you see the one where you ran a coffee shop?”

_“Excuse_ me? What the hell do I know about coffee shops?”

“Quite a lot, apparently. Especially the part where you flirt with the shy novelist who needs a place in the warm to write.”

“You? A novelist?”

“I know.”

Regina shook her head. “Emma-“

“What about the one where you’re a cop and I’m-“

“Emma - how many other realms did you visit?”

“I don’t know. I lost count.”

“They must have needed to send you to more than they did me,” Regina mused, mostly thinking out loud, but Emma heard her.

“Yeah. Because I kept running.”

“That was the baby one?”

“It started it off.”

“I’m sorry about that one,” Regina said quietly. “It must have been hard for you to see…yourself…like that.”

Emma shrugged. Her smile was watery. 

“It threw me for a loop. So I ran. Then in the next world, and the next, I just kept thinking about it, and wanting to run. And they just kept sending me on.”

“I’m sorry,” Regina said again, softly.

“What convinced them to send you home?”

“I cried,” Regina said with a grin.

“You cried?” Emma spluttered. “I’m sorry I missed that!” She grinned too. “You missed me that much, huh?”

Regina put on her haughtiest glare. “I had _just_ come from the baby one, so it was understandable I was a little…emotional.”

“Hah.”

“Heroes can never resist tears,” Regina said smugly. “A damsel in distress is like a red flag to a bull for a hero. Even when the damsel is herself.”

“I’ll remember you think that,” Emma said with a warning look.

“It won’t do you any good,” Regina replied. “It’s in your very DNA. _Knowing_ wont stop you reacting.”

Emma’s glare dissolved into an acquiescing smile.

They watched the waves a little longer.

“What convinced them to send _you_ home?” Regina asked.

Emma stiffened. 

“The last stop I made, I was outside the house - the one on Mifflin. It looked..different..but it was still your place. The garden was bigger, and there was a porch swing.” 

She took a deep breath. 

“I walked up there, to the swing. And you were sitting there, just reading or knitting. You were old, Regina. Your hair was all white, and you had these wrinkles. And you were…so _beautiful.”_

The last word was delivered on a gasping breath. There were tears in Emma’s eyes now.

“You were alone. I couldn’t see any sign of me anywhere. You noticed me; saw me looking around. And you said, _‘oh I’m so sorry, my dear. She’s gone. You just missed her.’_ “

“Emma!” Regina gasped in horror, her hand clutching Emma’s arm, her eyes shining with tears she was fighting to keep from falling.

Emma’s breath was shuddering in her chest, making her speech choppy and halting.

“All I could think was ‘I’ve left you. I’ve left you alone. How could I _do_ that?!’ I was so _angry_ with myself. Then you saw my face, and you started to laugh!”

“I would never-“

“And you said, _‘oh my darling girl. She’s just gone shopping. Insists on driving herself, even when she knows she shouldn’t.’_ ”

Regina laughed then, a sound bordering on the hysterical. “Still stubborn, then,” she muttered.

“Apparently,” Emma said. “I waited till I got back. You gave me _such_ a hard time. Telling me off and calling me a stubborn fool. And I just let it all run off my back and teased you about your temper.” She sighed and took Regina’s hand, although she didn’t look at her yet. “I thought how much I wanted that. To be able to sit with you on a porch when we’re eighty and listen to you boss me around and think you’re in charge.”

Regina leaned into Emma’s shoulder.

“I’d’ve hidden your keys if I really didn’t want you driving,” she said with a wry grin. “Or taken the engine out of your car.”

“Huh,” Emma said thoughtfully. “You’re sneaky in your old age. Anyway. I talked to them for a while. Then you said _‘Ready to go home?’_ And I was. I was _so_ ready. So they made a portal and here I am.”

“It needed both of us to open a portal?”

“I think our power got a bit wonky at some point. They didn’t really want to talk about it.”

“Hmm,” Regina mused, her mind already sifting through all the various reasons and causes for that to happen to _both_ of them.

Emma got abruptly to her feet, tugging her hand gently free from Regina’s.

“It’s weird, right?”

“What is, dear?” Regina asked, distracted.

“All those realms. All those worlds. All those versions of us. All of them together.”

“I’m sure there is a logical-“

“Why not _us?”_

“Why not us, what, Emma?”

“Why aren’t _we_ together? All of _them_ are!”

“As I am trying to tell you. There is-“

“I bet there’s an us out there to blame!”

“Emma-“

“Think about it! There has to be…like a…a ..Prime Reality, or something. Right? The main ones?”

“Have you been reading Henry’s comics again?”

“Am I right?”

“I suppose. It’s logical. An Ur-realm, if you will.”

“Right. Well I bet Prime Us have something to do with why we’ve never-“

“Why would that be…that makes no _sense_ , Emma!”

“Yeah? Well. It’s the best theory I’ve got right now. Come on, Regina. Let’s go.”

“Where? Home?”

“No! You’ve been paying attention right, every time they opened a portal? It wouldn’t be you if you hadn’t.”

“I may have,” Regina said guardedly.

“Well, let’s go. Let’s go find this Prime Us and kick their asses until they explain why we’re not together.”

“Emma-“

“Time’s a wasting, Regina!” Emma called, as she strode off up the beach, looking for a nice clear spot for Regina to cast from. “We’ll probably have to convince a few of us to show us the way to the Prime realm.” She clenched her fists, like she was itching for something to punch.

“Emma!” Regina shouted after her, exasperated. “Will you please- Emma! You don’t have to go off and fight the universe! There is another way.”

Emma turned to face her.

“What other way?” She looked confused.

“If this is something you really want-“

Emma glared at her like she’d just said the most ridiculous thing. 

Regina sighed. She stood up and walked over to Emma.

“We don’t have to fight the universe, then. All we have to do is go to dinner.”

“Dinner?” She looked even more confused.

“Yes,” Regina said with another sigh. Emma was so focused on punching something, she’d obviously need a little more explanation than that. “Dinner. You and me. Somewhere nice. Where neither you nor I have to cook.”

“A date?” Emma said, carefully, wanting to be sure she’d understood.

“Yes,” Regina nodded. “A date. Maybe with candles on the table. And music. And no leather straps or whips.”

“Oh,” Emma said. 

She looked slightly disappointed.

The edges of Regina’s mouth turned upwards in a smile that held quite a lot of promise.

“At least, not on the first date,” she amended.

Emma perked up.

“Is that all right?” Regina asked.

Emma nodded enthusiastically. “Tonight?” she asked.

Regina’s smile turned fond. She took Emma’s hand.

“Perhaps tomorrow night? There’s a text on Henry’s phone that may need some explaining first.”

“Okay,” Emma sighed.

“And we still haven’t finished our discussion about the carousel.”

“Really? You want to-“

“Go back to the park, and finish our walk? Yes. I’ll even buy you another ice cream. If you promise to not let it melt all over me again.”

Emma grinned.

“No promises, Madam Mayor. That shirt of yours is _most_ distracting.”


End file.
